Confront
by NauruAyumi
Summary: OneShot RinxHaru, taking place at the inn where Tohru and Kyo's wedding has elapsed. Rin's been running, but its always his name on her lips. Now is the time to confront him once and for all... Something's in the Air. Part 4 of Contagious Concepts. R&R!


Part four of Contagious Concepts- A concept for my each of my favorite Furuba pairings. They take place after the reception of Tohru and Kyo's wedding (they're 22, it took him awhile to get the guts to ask her...). It's a moonlit night and there is something contagious in the air.

I'll be posting them as separate one-shots, because the ratings will change between them.

If you enjoy this one, please read my Kakeru x Komaki fic called 'Conference' and my Arisa x Kureno fic called 'Content' and my Yuki x Machi fic called 'Confident'

Disclaimer- Furuba isn't mine.

R&R! I'd love to know what you think. Tell me which fic/pairing I should post/write next! No flames please, flames hurt. But kind and respectful criticism is appreciated.

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Rin knew, standing at the edge of the decorative pond, that she was no good at things like that. There were few as stubborn as her and none worse at apologizing.

_"I'm sorry for every time I've been mean to you and every time I've been ridiculous and all the pain I've caused you."_

She knew she would never say that. It didn't seem enough. Such trivial words would do nothing for these strange years past.

She stared at the edge of the water, flat stones and artistically scattered plants. There were waterlillies dotting the glossy silver, totally clamped in on themselves. The white pods, seeming so solid, some half submerged in perfect mirror of the full moon were patiently waiting. Waiting for the sun, like she couldn't.

Fear was what drove her. She was afraid if she waited until the morning, she would leave again. Again. Like so many times before. She was a runner, keeping away from her problems rather than resigning herself to them like she did so many years before.

And she'd run so far.

She had been so scared, so angry, so indignant when her curse broke. It wasn't that she'd been 'special', or that everyone was moving on so much more easily than she could. No, she was faced with Haru.

_"Rin."_

_She'd looked at him. They were still shaky, probing the scars they'd gained in their internal battles. Nothing was the same as back when they were children. _

_"Let's finally be free. Really free. Together." He was totally serious, and his perfect eyes bored into her own, as she stared. Her expression was somewhere between shocked and terrified. He stared her down like a snake charmer, a horse whisperer._

_"Come with me. We'll run away if you want. Go somewhere far away and just be together." _

_It sounded so perfect that she knew it would go horribly wrong. Something behind her sternum twisted violently so that she nearly choked. She wanted to keep the picture, of them together, far away and happy, a perfect photograph. And she knew, deep down, that she would let shadows into that photo. There would be no happy ending for them. It was so clear. They would be consumed; the evil was not in the curse, it was in her. _

She had left him there without answering and hopped the first plane that was going away. Far away.

So she wandered, far and wide. To meet people for an instant, a moment, a greeting in whatever language they spoke was so relieving. They would never be tainted by her, by the pain she dragged in her heart and in her body.

Sketching dancers performing for tourists in the polluted and corrupted ruins of Angkor Wat, she'd met a man who gave her a golden flower from a garland. She spoke none of his language but he smiled warmly at her wide eyes. She had never received a gift from a stranger before.

Giving rice cakes she'd bought from a vendor to a stoic line of alms-collecting monks in the northeast of India was a new experience. The last man in the row was barely older than 12 and blushed profusely at the beautiful woman before him though his eyes never met with hers nor even moved.

She was roaming through Mumbai when she caught word from Kagura (the only person she'd kept any contact with, on pain of death if she breathed a word) via e-mail that Haru was looking for her. It had been over six months; apparently he'd searched Japan first. He was flying to New Delhi. The knowledge shocked her, and panic drove her feet to the nearest airport.

She had been staying in places for up to a month until she'd heard the news. Her Europe tour was a hurried jump from place to place, based on availability of transportation. She skittered over the earth like a dried up leaf, running away from home, running away from Haru, running away from herself.

A soccer game in Madrid.

Carnivale in Venice.

A disco in Rome

Locked out of the Youth Hostel in Marseilles. Sleeping on the street.

Arguing with a Japanese tour guide over the innocence of a gypsy girl with long, dark, trailing hair in Moscow.

Almost kissing a boy who looked just like Haru in Oslo.

Vowing never to return to the Scandinavian Peninsula.

It took her three years to get over how stubborn she'd been. And how much she wanted him back. She'd dreamed of nothing else when she slept, and wanted no other when she was cold and lonely. But it took a certain amount of pushing for her to realize it.

_"Sexy lady!" The Greek man said in accented English. She turned her head to look at him. He was well middle-aged and grizzled, with a salt and pepper five-o-clock shadow to go with his unruly off-black curls. He was comfortable, leaning against the wall of the alley above where she sat. She had nowhere to go, having missed the ferry. She missed the rest of what he said, his English and hers were so bad, but she got the picture. His eyes leered, lingering on her cleavage, her legs as he propositioned her. _

_It occurred to her objectively that she could go with him. He'd probably pay her, and she could use the money. But she wasn't desperate. Thinking about letting him kiss her where Haru had kissed her and touch her where Haru had touched her felt so wrong, and she hadn't done anything._

_She met his eyes and shook her head, slowly, then more emphatically. He'd left without harassing her; apparently not the type to deal with resistance. Strangely, she felt proud. She'd protected herself. _

_Deep down she understood that it was Haru. Only Haru. Haru from the first when she cried from fear of discovery silently until he turned to look at her, his face blank and deep all at once, unbuttoning his shirt. Her face had burned and then her body burned and her mind burned and their souls burned together. He held her closer than she'd ever imagined possible, so safe, his arms snaked around her bare back, solid. No one else could reduce her to such perfect curling smoke. _

_Looking out at the Adriatic, she knew it was him. It wasn't just that other guys didn't interest her; it was that she was being faithful. To him. To Haru. He would be the only one to know her that closely, to know about the centipede-like scar between her shoulders and to know exactly how gently to kiss it to make her shudder. Only he would know that she had to be held carefully and whispered gently to when she was brought to the highest place, or she would lose herself in the terrors of her childhood as she reached a point of panic. _

_Funny, she thought, that now she couldn't just go back to him. Things never worked that way for her. She wouldn't know what to say, how to make up for such a long silence._

In the end, it was Tohru that saved her the trouble. The wedding invitation was extended by Kagura through the pixels of a screen in a café in Helsinki.

_No need to RSVP. I'll tell them to save you a place_, she'd added. Rin wasn't sure if it was a lifeline to give her plenty of chances to back out or a demand that she attend.

Two days before the date she found herself in the terminal, boarding a plane to Tokyo International. She couldn't rest the whole trip, across the world, instead shaking. The businessman next to her gave her an annoyed look so she pressed herself against the shuttered window. A cold draft seeped in from between the rivets and raised goose-bumps on her arms. She closed her eyes.

As usual, he filled her dreams, and she couldn't really tell if she was asleep or not. It was quiet inside her head, except for him. She could hear him breathe.

He was close, then far, caressing her skin, then washing his own. At last he took her hands, and it felt so real, his gentle pressure and warmth and everything she could ask for, until he leaned in and captured her lips, tugging at them until she kissed him back. _It's only a dream_, she understood, and melted into him like they'd never been apart.

Then he was pulling away, letting go of her hands abruptly, and she looked down. Her hands were covered in cloudy black ink. A shadow, and blood, and the man in Athens was standing off to the side, leering again. Haru was shaking his head, and looking at his own hands, also tainted. He turned and began to walk away. She could not follow him; her legs were being consumed by her poison.

She awoke, crying silently. Her lips tasted terrible, and felt like pale and salt-shriveled slugs between her nose and chin.

Doubts ate her through as she paced outside the airport in Japan. She was back, after so long. The noise was the same, the traffic, the people. The taxi driver was staring at her, she'd just hailed him, and now she couldn't make up her mind. The wedding was in a few hours, and she couldn't make up her mind! Finally, a courteous man in a suit picked up her half-empty suitcase and her over-stuffed backpack and set them in the waiting trunk, giving her a wink. She sighed, and let him open the car door for her.

It was a traditional wedding and she didn't have anything to wear. She felt silent, as if she didn't speak the language here.

Outside the inn she skulked, watching the others come inside. They probably didn't really recognize her. She'd lost a little weight, not that she'd had much to begin with, and she wasn't wearing her usual type of shoes, but a pair of sneakers she'd bought for a discount price in Morocco. Her hair hadn't grown out very much, as if she'd willed it not to, and it was barely to her shoulders. She remembered some very drunk people in a youth hostel giving her a hair cut. While she was asleep and too exhausted to realize.

Now, after standing across the room from Haru at the ceremony and reception, and being hugged ferociously by Kagura and more kindly by Tohru (who was so grown up, but still ditzy, and was only out-blushed by Kyo), she was trying to get up the guts to talk to him, once and for all.

She hugged her shawl to herself. It was a dark shimmery grey pashmina, and not very warm, but she felt like covering her arms a little. The fabric was holding her together so her anxieties didn't let her blow away in dusty little particles.

He was wading in the pond, the lukewarm water up to his mid-thighs as he broke through the sky-scape in the reflection.

When the wind picked up for a half-moment the perfect moon distorted and his shape shifted.

Perhaps he heard the wind in her shawl, or in her hair, on gentle on her skirt, or maybe he just knew she was there, by smell, by love, by divine intervention. He turned his shoulders slightly and peered at her.

Her eyes were not wide, she'd grown beyond that. People took you for naïve when your eyes where too open. Rin had done some maturing, and her eyes were calm and deep and cool, full of pain and love and remorse and worry and still sparkling in the moonlight. Some of her ferocity was gone, like a sharp stone smoothed enough to not be dangerous to a gentle hand.

She was ready to love him, selfishly, and she wanted him back. Forever.

Looking in his eyes, the same depth as her own, she wondered if he knew that she could deal with the shadows a little better. She wasn't going to cling to them anymore. They wouldn't define her. She was looking at her definition.

His eyes slid shut. Something like panic replaced the sensation of wisdom that she'd felt. What was he doing? Was he going to be angry enough to send her away? She understood that she'd left, for too long, gone too far, and she didn't deserve him. No way could she ever. But she wanted him to say something.

"Haru…" She breathed his name.

In an instant his eyes snapped open and a stronger gust stole her shawl from her arms.

He snatched it from the air and turned full around, a strange and perplexing look on his face. She couldn't stop watching him.

Wading agonizingly slowly he walked towards her, leaving chaos in the painting on the glassy liquid behind him. He was almost a silhouette against the immense and bright moon, but his hair was shining with beads of pond water like pearls.

She found herself shaking again, but she made sure she wouldn't move. There would be no more running, not from Haru. Never again.

His foot stepped up to the shore, bare and a bit muddy. He was close.

Then he took her pashmina and wrapped it around her shoulders, holding her between it and his body. She stumbled a little and he took up the slack to steady her.

Suddenly the shawl was on the ground and his arms were thrown around her. She pressed her cold nose into his neck, resting her hands on his chest.

"It's really you…" He murmured, over and over. She sighed and let out a choking giggle-sob. Tears were running down her face.

He pulled back and stared straight into her eyes, intently, intensely. His scrutiny felt perfect.

"Haru," She said again before leaning in and catching his lips between her own. She pulled away. "I'm so sorry." There could be no words more appropriate. "I love you."

She paused, waiting to see if his feelings had changed. She wasn't sure what she would do if they had, and her whole being wanted him to repeat her sentiments, but she understood that 4 years was a very long time.

Haru grabbed her tighter and pulled her in for another kiss. He was being careful, she could tell, but she was already burning. She ran her hands through his hair, his perfect hair. She loved it. Something possessive and deprived roared through her, she nearly bit him as she pulled him deeper. The fear she'd felt was gone, far away, and now it was only Haru. Haru and her. The shadows were being exorcised by the moonlight and by him.

He did not disappoint her. He kissed her thoroughly, tasting her upper lip first, then the lower before reaching inside. She sighed and felt her bones wobble. Four years without this seemed like such a battle; walking uphill through tenacity alone. She responded to his kiss with her whole soul, she was flying in happiness.

He pulled away, holding her face between his hands, nose to nose. He stared into her eyes and his strange, lost expression from before was gone. Her breath was too short, too desperate. His grey eyes were alight, like smoky pearls, smoldering pearls.

"I love you. Forever. Always have, always will. And no matter how much we run from each other eventually the earth will carry us back." His voice was somber, though breathless.

"Don't worry, there won't be any more running." And she knew from the depths of her twisted and untwisted being that it was the truth. She had never told anything more honestly. She could see her eyes shining in his the instant before their faces collided again.

At last, her knees gave out and she dragged him to the ground by the sides of his open shirt. She didn't care about the mud or the leaves or anything. One thing she'd learned on her journey was that clothing could be washed. There was something far more important occupying her attention. She couldn't help running her hands up his sides, remembering that he wasn't ticklish there. Throwing her hands around his neck she pulled herself up to him until gravity took over and she was pressed against the grass.

He wasn't like she remembered exactly, but she wasn't surprised. She'd changed too. She used to be scared every time they started to get hot and heavy, terrified really, and he would spend half the time trying to comfort her.

Their fingers locked together and she smiled at him.

_It's okay because Haru is here._

He dragged his knee up her bare leg, disregarding the fact that it was wet from his "swim" , and she half-closed her eyes and made a small, indiscriminate sound of pleasure. She squirmed a little, and let go of one hand to slide his shirt off. In the process she accidentally brushed his underarm, somewhere that was ticklish, and with a choked and out of place guffaw he crashed to the ground.

The serious moment was broken, and they rolled playfully, kissing, touching, burning.

Pressed together as they had not been in so long, Rin decided she was home. For real. For ever. Her passion overflowed, spilling out of her eyes, her ears, running down her neck, over her chest, through her hair, sticky with sweat. But she couldn't discern her own from Haru's, they were a set, a pair. A pair of socks. And maybe she'd been the runaway left one for too long.

She pulled him closer, two in one, and she knew they would make it work. She threw her head back.

"_Haru!"_

His name would always be on her lips.

--

R&R please, tell me what you think! Hope you enjoyed!


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